On Deadly Ground

  ‘Rick, don’t—’

  ‘He’s fucking insane. Did you see that?’ I shook my head in disbelief.

  ‘Ouch.’ Kate pulled her wet T-shirt away from her breasts.

  I crouched beside her. ‘Christ. Are you all right?’

  ‘I’ll live. Ouch.’ She pulled the T-shirt from her scalded breast again.

  ‘The bastard’s burnt you!’

  ‘Rick. No!’ She called as I stormed towards the door. ‘Leave it, Rick. Come back here. Don’t, Rick. It’s not worth it!’

  But sheer fury had got a hold of me. Anger. Christ, yes, I blazed with it. I threw open the door and marched into the corridor.

  I was going to find my brother.

  And no one—but no one—was going to stop me.

  Chapter 78

  I saw my brother standing down by the jetty talking to Tesco and Jesus. There was a whole bunch of Jesus’s people standing there, too, their strips of silk crackling out like pennants in the breeze.

  The breeze gusted cold.

  But I didn’t feel it. The blood boiled in my veins. I couldn’t believe how Stephen had behaved. He wouldn’t listen to reason. The scalds he’d inflicted on Kate would blister and scar.

  The man had turned into a monster.

  Teeth gritted, fists clenched, I walked down the street, my stride hard and very, very angry.

  ‘Hello, Rick. Marvellous news, isn’t it?’ Tutts appeared by my side. She wore stilettos, the zebra-patterned miniskirt and on her top half, a leather jacket zipped against the cold. ‘Aren’t you and your brother alike? You could be twins. And isn’t he just gorgeous? I mean really, really gorgeous. He’s got lovely eyes.’

  I didn’t answer. I walked faster—angrier.

  Tutts had to run to keep up, the stilettos click-clicking against the road. ‘Jesus is drawing up a list of who goes first. You know something, Rick? I might be on the first plane…Rick. Rick? What’s wrong? Rick!’

  Picture the scene: Stephen’s talking to Jesus. He’s describing a vital aspect of the plan, he’s moving his hands, smiling his showbiz smile. Stephen, as charismatic as ever, has got them in the palm of his hand. They stand there—Jesus in leather waistcoat, Tesco and the rest looking like carnival figures with hair dyed every colour of the rainbow, silk strips fluttering, dressed in jeans, cowboy boots and bikers’ leather jackets. Tutts stops dead, her mouth open in shock. She knows there’s going to be trouble.

  Bang.

  I steamed straight in, shoved Stephen in the chest so hard he almost fell.

  ‘Who the Hell do you think you are?’ I shouted at Stephen.

  ‘The poor schmuck who’s trying to save your life,’ he roared back. ‘Now just piss off and let your big brother carry on doing just that.’

  I saw Tesco and Jesus exchanging looks. They were surprised, but also curious to see what would happen next.

  ‘Like Hell I’ll piss off,’ I snapped. ‘You’re going to listen to me.’

  ‘Listen to you?’ Stephen snorted. ‘I hear my arse fart more sense than you talk.’

  ‘Why won’t you listen?’

  ‘Why don’t you fuck off?’

  ‘Come with me and I’ll show—uph.’

  That’s when he swung the punch. It caught me on the cheekbone. I went down, feeling as if a lump of concrete had just tumbled out of the sky on top of me.

  ‘Don’t get up,’ he warned me. ‘Not until I tell you. Then go back to the hotel.’

  I didn’t wait to be told. I got up.

  I punched, catching him a glancing blow on the chin. It still hurt him, though. He ducked back, shaking his head, swearing under his breath. I swung again. And again. Some blows connecting. Some not.

  And all I could think about was that photo of him on the dining room wall at Mum’s house in Fairburn. That glossy showbiz photo with God Almighty Stephen Kennedy, hair blow-dried, that metre-long strip of dazzling teeth, twinkling eyes. That huge scribbled signature in red felt-tip that turned the looping ‘y’ in Kennedy into a happy-smiley face. His TV station had sent those out to his fans by the hundred.

  At some point my famous video-jock brother had decided to stoop down to us mortals who exist at dirt level, and he’d sent a photograph to his mother and only brother.

  Oh thank you, Mr Stephen-God-Almighty-Kennedy. Thank you so much for your fucking stupid photo.

  I realized then how much I hated the photo. How much I hated him.

  My fists blurred. They cracked again and again into his face. He was knocked back through the line of men. Tesco tried to catch hold of Stephen to help him regain his balance. I shoved Tesco back so hard he fell back into the water.

  ‘Keep out of this!’ I yelled. ‘And don’t you dare get in the fucking way!’

  Right there and then I believe I could have pissed pure rage. All I wanted to do was destroy my brother. I punched again and again. His face? It was like hitting a pillow filled with feathers. I felt nothing. I didn’t feel the cuts on my knuckles where I’d split the skin driving my punches at his skull.

  I didn’t feel it when he poked one back to my jaw or eye.

  I just wanted to smash that handsome, oh-so-handsome face to pulp.

  Blood sprayed.

  Tutts was screaming.

  Blood covered Stephen’s face.

  It covered my fists. Thick, slick. Red as strawberry jam.

  I cracked out another punch. It connected with his chin. Blood sprayed, showering drops the size of pennies to spot the tarmac.

  Christ.

  This was good.

  This was so fucking good.

  This was revenge.

  Revenge for everything.

  Revenge for pushing me.

  For hurting Kate.

  For leaving me.

  I realized the truth.

  This wasn’t because of what had happened ten minutes ago.

  This is because of what had happened ten years ago.

  He quit trying to hit me. Instead he grabbed me by the neck; his arm felt like a band of steel crushing my throat. I was off balance. I tried to push against the ground with my feet to knock him backwards.

  Christ, he was strong. And this time he was spitting his own rage.

  Every time I kicked down at the ground with the heels of both feet it sent a judder through us.

  It shook more droplets of blood down onto black road tar where they glistened, darkly, like drops of oil from an engine.

  Tutts screamed, ‘Jesus…Tesco! Stop them! They’re killing each other!’

  From the corner of my eye I saw an upturned dinghy at the side of the road. I worked my way to it. Pushing him back as I thrust down with both feet against the ground. The sky looked darker. I realized his grip was starving my brain of oxygen.

  I pushed back harder. He bumped against the boat. His calves pressed hard against it as I shoved. I shoved harder. He toppled back.

  His body weight crashed him through the fibreglass hull of the boat as though it was no more substantial than an oversized eggshell.

  He released his grip. I scrambled to my feet. He rolled free of the ruined boat.

  One second flat: we were both facing each other again.

  I swung my fists at him. This time he always moved backward. Every blow—one step back.

  Still, I felt pumped up tight with rage. I wanted to kill him. I roared obscenities. Sweat stung my eyes now. I could hardly see.

  But I saw what he did next. He stood up straight, looked over my shoulder.

  Warily 1 shot a look back, wondering if Tesco was coming up behind, wanting a piece of me.

  But without realizing it, I’d pushed Stephen back through some bushes. We couldn’t even see the others now. But they wouldn’t be far behind; they’d want to see the outcome of the fight.

  I looked back at Stephen. The expression on his face had changed.

  He looked me steadily in the face. Then he held his hands up at either side of his head, like a defeated soldier surrendering to the enem
y.

  I knew then that I should have stopped hitting.

  But something else drove me now.

  As he stood there like a crucified Messiah, his calm blue eyes on me, well, that’s when I hit him for the last time.

  Chapter 79

  I looked down at my brother. He lay on the double bed in the hotel room.

  Kate had drawn the curtains after they’d carried him inside. There he lay on the white sheet, his head turned slightly to one side on the pillow. His face bruised purple from my punches.

  Dead.

  The autumn wind blew against the hotel. It produced a moaning sound—cold, lonely somehow. Like an animal lost in the dark.

  I’d killed my brother.

  After I’d punched him, as he’d stood there, arms up at either side, not attempting to fight back, nor even shielding himself from the blow, that’s what had run through my mind.

  Instantly all the anger had gone. As if turned off by a tap.

  He’d lain where he’d fallen, flat on his back, eyes staring.

  Jesus, Tesco, Tutts, the others had appeared.

  ‘My God,’ Tesco said in astonishment. ‘You’ve killed him; you’ve damn well killed him.’

  Tutts cried out. ‘No. Why did you fight? Why did you fight!’

  Why indeed?

  I knew then it was a long story. More than the recent argument, more than him pushing me into Kate and burning her.

  Hell…I’d looked down at him and the floodgates had opened. I’d wept like a child.

  Then I’d felt the hand touch mine.

  It happened again as I stood beside Stephen. He reached up, touched my hand and said exactly the same thing he’d said as he’d lain there on the ground with me thinking he was dead and gone.

  ‘Hey…Kiddo. Don’t worry. We Kennedys have got thick skulls.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked, anxious and guilty all at the same time.

  ‘Believe it or not…I want to actually take off my skin and hang it in the closet. Then maybe I won’t hurt so much.’ He smiled, then grimaced. ‘Ow…you know it hurts more when I smile.’

  I sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I’m sorry. I overreacted.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. It’s lucky I didn’t cause Kate some serious burns. How is she?’

  ‘Pink.’

  ‘There’s blistering?’

  ‘No, the coffee wasn’t that hot after all.’

  ‘You’ve seen the damage?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He raised his eyebrows, one still matted with blood. I could see he was amused and pleased. ‘I thought the coffee splashed her…chest.’

  I smiled back. ‘It did.’

  ‘So I take it you two are, mm, dating now?’

  ‘You take it right.’

  ‘Thank Heaven for that. I thought I was going to have to take you to one side and explain your willy’s for more than just tinkling through.’

  I laughed. ‘I managed to find out that much for myself.’

  He laughed with me, then held his jaw. ‘Ouch…Hell, where did you learn to punch like that?’

  ‘You gave me some practice when we were kids.’

  ‘I guess I did.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have lost my rag like that…sorry.’

  Stephen pulled himself into a sitting position. ‘Sorry for what?’

  ‘You know why I did that?’

  ‘Revenge?’

  I nodded seriously.

  He shrugged. ‘You never did get your own back for me shooting you with the BB gun, did you?’

  ‘Stephen.’ I was troubled. ‘I genuinely wanted to kill you.’

  ‘You did,’ he said seriously. ‘At least you killed your old image of me.’

  ‘Sounds all a bit West Coast New Age mumbo jumbo to me.’

  ‘It’s true you killed the image of me as your big brother. About time, too.’ He groaned, looking sore as he swivelled himself so he could sit with both feet on the floor. ‘I was as much to blame as much as anyone. I patronized you. Bossed you around. Still treated you like a little kid. I deserved it.’

  ‘When I was fighting you,’ I swallowed, ‘I could only think of how you’d just walked out on Mum and me and gone off to the States with Dad. You know that cut me up?’

  ‘You could have come, too. You had a choice.’

  ‘I was ten years old. And I knew I couldn’t desert Mum.’

  He nodded. ‘So you were right to exact your revenge. Being your brother doesn’t stop me from being an ambitious, egotistical bastard, you know?’

  ‘Can I get you anything?’

  ‘A drink, please. Oooch-arr…you’re damn good with your fists, kid. I’m proud of you. No, Rick, don’t bother with the coffee. I’ve had enough of coffee today, believe me. Jesus, bless him, brought me a bottle of brandy earlier. It’s there by the telephone.’

  ‘What did Jesus say?’

  ‘Jesus asked me…Jesus? Can you believe he uses the name? It’s just so damn weird calling anyone Jesus.’ He watched me pour brandy into two mugs. ‘He asked me if the plan was still the same.’

  To fly his people out starting tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, that plan.’

  ‘That plan.’ I sighed.

  ‘You still don’t like it, do you, Rick?’

  ‘I like the idea. Get on a ship and leave all this starvation and shit behind? Great.’

  ‘But you still don’t trust Jesus and his happy band?’

  ‘No.’

  We sipped our brandy. This time the conversation was calm. We were going to discuss, not argue.

  ‘Rick, we’re really in the crap up on Fountains Moor. We’re living on potatoes, turnips, even the weeds that grow in hedge bottoms.’

  ‘These people are capable of vicious, sadistic acts you wouldn’t believe—’

  ‘Ah, but I do believe you, Rick. We’ll watch them closely. Any sign of a double-cross, they’ll regret it.’

  I sighed again. ‘Easier said than done.’

  ‘We’ll think of a way.’

  ‘So you do believe me? That they are murderers?’

  Stephen looked up at me and said quietly. ‘And so am I, Rick.’

  ‘You?’ I shook my head and laughed, an expression of disbelief, not amusement. ‘You’ve not murdered anyone.’

  He swallowed the mugful of brandy in one mouthful. ‘Remember those three on the moor? They’d stolen food and were running away.’

  ‘Sure, the girl and the man, and there was a young boy with them.’ I nodded. ‘But they grabbed Dean’s pistol.’

  ‘That was the story we gave.’ He poured more brandy, then sat there holding the cup in both hands, as if he could warm away something cold, bitterly cold that had lodged inside his heart. ‘This is the real story.’ He took a mouthful of brandy, swallowed it down. There we were, out of sight from everyone else just over the brow of that hill. You’d returned to camp to fetch more food and medical supplies. You’ll remember that I was there with Dean and Victoria.’

  I listened hard, my skin tingling. I wasn’t going to like this.

  ‘I was talking to the three of them, reassuring them, telling them everything would be all right. When, all of sudden, Victoria pulled the pistol from Dean’s belt.’

  ‘Victoria?’

  ‘Yep. Sweet, naive Victoria. She shot them. As simply and as brutally as that.’

  ‘But we heard shots from different firearms. You fired your shotgun?’

  ‘I’m coming to that. She shot them in the stomach.’

  ‘They didn’t die immediately?’

  ‘No. But they were in agony. Christ, you should have seen them. Rolling from side to side on the ground, they were clutching their stomachs like this.’ Stephen gripped his own stomach as if it had broken apart and he was trying to hold it together.

  He continued, ‘If we’d had a surgeon to hand we might have been able to save their lives. But it was clear they were going to die a slow and painful death.’

  ‘Christ.’
br />   Stephen’s eyes turned glassy as he remembered the awful scene. ‘Victoria said, "You’ve got a choice. Either watch them slowly bleed to death. Or you can do what I tell you."‘

  ‘And that was?’

  ‘That we all participate in the murder.’

  ‘You mean she was telling you to shoot them? To finish what she’d started?’

  Stephen nodded miserably. ‘It was, as she told us, a way of initiating us into the new reality. Kill or be killed. Show no mercy to strangers outside our community.’

  ‘The woman’s mad.’

  Stephen shook his head. ‘That’s the monstrous thing. She was right. If we’d let those three people go they’d have brought hundreds of people, starving people, back to our camp. We’d be dead ourselves now. I don’t doubt it.’

  ‘So you did as she said?’

  ‘Afraid so, Rick. She stood and watched as Dean and I shot them dead, in cold blood.’

  I sat there, numb.

  ‘So you see, Rick. I’m certainly no better than this bunch of people here.’ He looked grim. ‘Desperate times call for desperate measures.’ He swallowed more brandy. ‘And that includes murder.’

  Chapter 80

  ‘How are you feeling, Stephen?’

  ‘More to the point, Kate, how’re you feeling?’

  ‘Fine. Not so sore any more. Now, come on, Stephen. How are you?’

  ‘Aching…just aching.’

  I opened the bottle of wine. ‘Hell, just look at us. The walking wounded of Paradise Island.’

  I’d caught sight of my face in the wall mirror. My right eye had swollen where Stephen’s fist had connected. There were grazes on my forehead and chin, while my hands were bandaged where I’d cut my fists punching his hard skull. Kate wore a loose-fitting blouse; her upper chest and throat were still mottled pink where the hot coffee had splashed. As for Stephen, his face had swollen into a patchwork of brown- and green-coloured bruises.

  It was evening; the same day as the fight. We were sitting in Stephen’s room, talking by candlelight. Outside the wind droned across the rooftops to strip leaves from the trees. Kate and I were on friendly terms with Stephen again. In fact, I felt the closest to Stephen that I had for years. I think more than skin got broken that day. Those punches had broken down a barrier between us. Ever since he’d left with Dad all those years ago I’d harboured, deep down, a conviction that he’d abandoned me at what must have been the shittiest time of my life, the time when Dad told me he was going to divorce Mum.